Paris under the Commune eBook

Between Courbevoie and the Porte Maillot the fighting
is continual. Ground is lost and gained, such
and such a house that was just now occupied by the
Versaillais is now in the hands of the Federals, and
vice versa. Neither side is wholly victorious,
but the fighting goes on. What! is there no one
to cry out “Enough! Enough blood, enough
tears! Enough Frenchmen killed by Frenchmen, Republicans
killed by Republicans.” Men fall on each
side with the same war cry on their lips. Oh!
when will all this dreadful misunderstanding cease?

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 44: The biography of this general of
the Commune is very imperfect, down to the time when
he was elected for the 1st Arrondissement of Paris,
and was thereupon appointed Minister of War, or in
Communal phraseology, Delegate at the War Department.
He seems to have been one of those beings, without
country or family, but who are blessed, by way of
compensation, with a plurality of names; we do not
know whether Cluseret was really his own, or how many
aliases he had made use of.

It is said that he was formerly captain in a battalion
of Chasseurs d’Afrique, but was dismissed the
army upon being convicted of defalcations, in connection
with the purchase of horses, and, that soon after
his dismissal from the French army, he went to the
United States, where he served in the revolutionary
war, and attained to the rank of General. Then
we have another story, to the effect that having been
entrusted with the care of a flock of lambs, the number
of the animals decreased so rapidly, that nothing
but the existence of a large pack of wolves near at
hand, could possibly have accounted for it in an honest
way; this affair is said to have occurred at Churchill,
Such vague charges as these however deserve but little
credit.

After closing his career as a shepherd, he became
a defender of the Pope’s flock, enlisting in
the brigade against which Garibaldi took the field.
The next we hear of him is that he joined the Fenians,
and made an attempt to get possession of Chester Castle,
but that he fell under suspicion of being a traitor,
and was glad to escape to France, where, report says,
he found refuge with a religious community.

“When
the devil was sick,
The
devil a monk would be;
But
when the devil was well,
The
devil a monk was he!”

]

XXXV.

Thirty men carrying muffled drums, thirty more with
trumpets draped in crape, head a long procession;
every now and then the drums roll dismally, and the
trumpets give a long sad wail.

Numerous detachments of all the battalions come next,
marching slowly, their arms reversed. A small
bunch of red immortelles is on every breast.
Has the choice of the colour a political signification,
or is it a symbol of a bloody death?